Special to HEINUS by Samuel Zug PHILADELPHIA The holidays bring pressure. You know, pressure to get it all done, to be the best. This pressure can lead to accidents. A perfect example of accident potential is deep fat frying. People will deep fry just about anything: turkeys, pies, salad, pizza, ice cream, poodles, you name it. Recently I talked with Dr. Elise Faffner at the Aspen Food Institute and Trauma Center in Philadelphia. Dr. Faffner is an expert on how food accidents cause a sense of malaise, self-reproach and undercooking. Some examples of food accidents cited by Dr. Faffner will give you an idea what to watch out for this holiday season:
Manx pie: Given the fact that practically no one eats it, mince meat pie is strange to the average cook. Thus, according to Faffner, mistaking Manx pie for mince pie happens with some regularity. Faffner: “What is most surprising about this holiday fail is the number of cooks who actually manage to find a Manx cat, cut up and bake it in a pie. I understand it tastes like chicken.”
Yams in arsenic: A common mistake by hurried holiday cooks is to read “yams in aspic” as “yams in arsenic.” Due to the pressure, folks don’t think straight. Faffner: “A promising young bail bondsman in Trenton, N.J., served this dish at an office party and wiped out his entire office. He was arrested for manslaughter and had no one to bail him out.”
Sauteed durian: A tropical fruit that was all the rage in Paris and New York between August 21 & 22, 1991, durian is making a comeback. Some cooks mistakenly saute the fruit in absinthe. Dr. Faffner says this produces a powerful lung irritant similar to phosgene gas (famously used during trench warfare in World War I and in many nouvelle cuisine recipes). Faffner: “One harried French woman made this mistake and precipitated a level five evacuation of the Paris district of Clichy. She was later given an honorary degree by the Cordon Bleu school ‘for exemplary elan in the use of lung blistering agents in a sauce or saute.’”
Compote de compost: Inexperienced cooks sometimes fall victim to this mistake. Faffner: “They misread the recipe and in their haste will substitute composted organic matter for fruit, leading to a dish that not only tastes bad, but does not present well at table.”
(Thanksgiving dinner image by Ben Franske, nouvelle cuisine image by Jacques Lameloise)
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Ah… durian – it’s been referred to as the fruit that stinks like hell but tastes like heaven.
Having eaten it, I really wouldn’t go that far…I mean, it wasn’t bad, but if that’s what heaven is like – I may take my chances on the underworld.
eden
Thanks, E.
Wonder what the Thanksgiving feast is like in Hades?
I’ll bet it’s HOT and SPICY, and it’ll burn its way right through you!
eden
That’s probably right!